"That's enough of this tomfoolery, I wanna rock!" an audience member shouted to King Missile III during their concert last Friday night at Harriman Hall.
Lead vocalist and spoken-word poet John S. Hall shouted back,
"We will not rock! If you wanna rock, you have come to the wrong place!"
This situation was a perfect example of the band's ability to give the opposite of what people expect from a "rock" band.
Speaking in an interview at the concert, which was sponsored by the University Union Activities Board, Hall discussed the personal nature of his band; their self-proclaimed purpose is to amuse themselves.
"It's about finding things that we find funny," said Hall. "It's more about looking for (the) entertaining, interesting, odd, peculiar, perhaps funny . . . We're fortunate in the sense that people don't expect us to write conventional pop songs, which gives us a whole lot of leeway to do whatever we want."
That is the fairest assessment a person can make about the band; the members of King Missile III does whatever they want to the best of their ability.
This is not to say that King Missile III does not take itself seriously; in fact, the group is borderline pretentious. Of course, as an artsy novelty act, pretentiousness is expected. Self-compliments are necessary for artists. Otherwise, it would be difficult to seriously read or listen to their work objectively without dismissing it as childish ramblings with little or no meaning, which is especially important for a band as quirky as King Missile III.
Crowd reactions mean nothing to King Missile III, and the same goes for crowd size. To say that there were 50 people in attendance would be more than generous. Roughly half the crowd sat for the entire concert. Opening act No Results had the privilege of playing to less than 20 people, who all sat during their set.
No Results played their first show ever Friday night. With tasty riffs and harmonic nods to pop-punk, they showed promise. The crowd's reaction was devastatingly apathetic, but No Results received applause at the end of each song.
The sad thing about No Result's set was the lack of self-respect they showed on stage. Wearing polka dots and a propeller beanie, the lead singer gave the impression of wanting to be the village idiot rather than the musician. Audience members had so little concern for No Results, they neglected the demo CDs thrown to them by the band.
John Bradshaw, percussionist for King Missile III, played next and impressed the crowd with his use of a homemade instrument he called a "pencilina," for it was made, in part, with pencils. He played as a one-man band, taking on the pencilina, a drum set, a sound effects machine and singing responsibilities all at once. There was an edge to his music not found in King Missile III's recordings, a bite that was absent and missed while he played with the band.
King Missile III took the stage utterly indifferent to everything. The word "uninspired" has been used to describe performances in the past. And it applied last Friday as well.
"We have some albums for sale up here, if you're interested," Hall said to the crowd, with no apparent concern for whether they would sell.
No one can dispute the fact that King Missile III's "music" is hilarious. While "Detachable Penis" is their best-known song and arguably the staple of their fan base, it is most certainly not their best. Songs like "Gay/Not Gay" and "Socks" had the audience doubly rolling on their floor seats.
But the group played their songs as if it were a chore and was more interested in conversing with the audience. At the same time, this served to connect the band with its obviously devout fans.
For instance, one audience member singing along with the band finished "Jesus Was Way Cool" with the obscure lyric, "No matter there are so many people named Jesus," (pronounced "hay-zoos"), instead of the official lyric, "No wonder there are so many Christians."
Surprised that someone in the audience knew that version of the song, Hall asked the fan,
"Wait, that's on a live LP, wasn't it? Where did you hear that?"
"I taped it off of college radio," responded the obviously avid fan.
So went the evening with King Missile III, a very low-key gathering of fans. The band resentfully played their only hit, "Detachable Penis," along with various other crowd pleasers like "A Good Hard Look." The hilarity of the spoken-word poetry made the visit to Harriman Hall worthwhile, along with the knowledge that one got the opportunity to see the band that wrote about removable genitalia.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
